The invention relates generally to the field of temperature control for motor vehicles, and in particular to an improved method for manufacturing an air damper which sealingly abuts a housing partition in a heating or air conditioning unit.
In a known temperature control unit for a motor vehicle, as disclosed by DE-U-89 11 657, an air damper is formed as a plate-shaped base member that is extrusion-coated with an elastic sealing section made of a thermo-plastic elastomer. The sealing section is substantially a solid tube, having a full circular cross-section. When the damper is in its sealing position, a sealing lip laterally abuts a flat partition section of the temperature control unit. One drawback of this approach is the solid construction of the sealing section, which inhibits the ability of the sealing section to conform to the partition.
To address this problem of limited flexibility, DE-U 87 16 119 discloses an air damper having a hollow, tube-like sealing strip. However, the sealing strip must be clamped to the outer edge of the base member, thus undesirably complicating the manufacturing process. Alternatively, it is known to inject an elastic, hollow-body sealing strip formed by gas-injection onto a base member of an air damper. Here, too, the manufacturing process is undesirably complicated.